California, land of O.J., does better in Peterson case

Finally, a California jury appears to have gotten it right.
A jury of six men and six women on Friday found Scott Peterson guilty of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and the child she was carrying. Both bodies washed ashore in San Francisco Bay about three months after Peterson reported her missing last Christmas Eve.
The spot where the bodies were found was about 90 miles from the couple's home, but only a few miles from where Peterson had told police he had been out on his boat fishing the day she disappeared.
A coincidence such as that is enough to get any detective's attention. But there was a lot more.
To the casual observer, Peterson appeared to be a happy husband and an excited expectant father.
But his massage therapist mistress knew better, and it wasn't long before the police not only knew about the mistress, but they were listening in on her conversations with Peterson.
He was arrested only a few days after his wife's body was found. There's reason to believe that if they had waited much longer, they'd have been out of luck. He was driving just north of the Mexican border. His hair and goatee had been dyed blond and he was carrying nearly $15,000 in cash.
All he was missing was a white Bronco.
Nothing is simple
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Peterson case is not that he was found guilty, but that the prosecution had to spend five months in court proving its case and that deliberations were so tortured that a verdict wasn't reached until two jurors, including the foreman, were removed from the panel.
We're not suggesting that murder prosecutions should be anything less than thorough. But should it take five months to convince a jury that a guy who was carrying on an affair and complaining about how a wife and a baby were going to cramp his style, and who went "fishing" on the day his wife disappeared and in the very area where her body washed up killed her?
You wouldn't think so.
Of course, if he had left behind footprints and DNA and a bloody glove, the trial might have taken twice as long -- and he might have been found innocent.
The trial's not over yet. There's still a penalty phase, during which the jury will decide whether Peterson should get life in prison or the death penalty. And there are bound to be appeals.
For the moment in appears justice will be served in the Peterson case. But as we've seen so many times in the past, there are no sure things in California.